Entrepreneurship as a means for alleviating poverty has garnered significant attention among businesses, policy makers, and scholars in recent years. Yet, little attention has been given to the approach by which the poor actually seek out and interact with customers to offer goods and services...

We survey 612 entrepreneurs who are members of microcredit programs across three developing countries to examine the determinants of firm employment. We find that for opportunity-motivated entrepreneurs, a greater number of employees are predicted by pre-entry means (managerial skill,...